New Music: Africa’s biggest artists unite with ONE for agriculture

Africa’s hottest recording artists have come together to support our Do Agric campaign, and together have written and recorded the track “Cocoa na Chocolate.”

It’s A-MA-ZING. Turn it up and get ready to move:

Love it? Go on, play it again.

The artists involved include some of the hottest artists from Africa, including D’Banj, Femi Kuti, Tiken Jah Fakoly, Judith Sephuma, Diamond and Omawumi. And get this – it’s the biggest music collaboration in Africa’s history.

Their message is simple: agriculture in Africa has the potential to provide food, create jobs and boost economies, but African leaders need to invest now.

Our pan-African campaign launched earlier this year, and so far over 100,000 ONE members in Africa have signed our petition urging leaders to keep the promises they have already made to invest 10 percent of national budgets in agriculture.

The campaign also sets out to show young Africans that agriculture pays, and that farming can be cool.

D’Banj says,

“Through this song, we are calling on youths to go online and join ONE.org, to get more involved in agriculture, and to ask our governments to step up and improve agricultural investments, so that the youths can have a better chance of succeeding in it.”

The track features 11 different languages including Swahili, Pidgin, Shona and Xhosa, and each artist wrote their own verse. The lyrics of “Cocoa na Chocolate,” (Cocoa is Chocolate) talk about the importance of agriculture for Africa’s future and in the fight against extreme poverty.

Cocoa is just one example of the continent’s potential. While it produces tons of cocoa, most is exported for processing at much lower prices than the finished product: chocolate. This is then imported again, at highly inflated prices.

Africa is missing a big economic opportunity, and investing in the sector would create much needed jobs for young people and improve the incomes of farmers. With 70 percent of African people making a living from agriculture, the potential to transform lives and communities is huge.